This year’s Thanksgiving meal will cost Americans less than it has for decades. It’s part of an extended trend of food price deflation that’s been going on nationwide — but if you live in Maine, you might not notice it so much.
It might seem like food prices just keep going up and up, but according to experts, they’re really not.
“We’ve seen turkey prices come down, we’ve seen milk prices come down, and ultimately, that leads to some relief for the consumer at the retail level.” says John Newton, director of market intelligence for the American Farm Bureau Federation, which releases a Thanksgiving food price survey each year. When adjusted for inflation, the traditional turkey meal and trimmings will cost less than it has in decades.
“The price of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner is actually lower than it was 31 years ago, when we first started this survey,” he says.
According to that survey, a traditional meal for ten guests, of turkey, stuffing, fresh cranberries, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, rolls, milk, sweet potatoes and assorted vegetables will cost a grand total of $49.87. The biggest expenditure, a 16-pound turkey, will set you back about $1.42 per pound — about 2 cents a pound less than last year.
“It’s not necessarily a great thing for farmers when the price of food gets real cheap,” says John Rebar, who heads University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Sometimes you get what you pay for. If your bird of choice is a heritage Bourbon Red or a Narragansett, you can expect to pay more like $7 per pound.
Rebar agrees that it’s possible to set a table for rock-bottom price, but with a burgeoning foodie and farmers’ market culture, he says he’d be surprised if many Mainers didn’t pay more.
“Meals like Thanksgiving are really values statements,” he says. “And that’s bleeding over into more than just a one event, one day. Many people want to shop local year round. People are willing to pay their local farmer a little bit more than they would maybe 20 or 30 years ago to get something that is local, is fresh, is of high quality.”
Maine and Vermont, two places with a strong local foods culture, both pay significantly more for their groceries than the national average. According to a study released earlier this year by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Mainers’ grocery bills, per capita, were about 30 percent higher than the national average.
But other factors are also at play. Brian Todd with the Food Institute in New Jersey says, even with its rebounding family farm culture, Maine is still at the far end of a long supply line. Much of Maine’s produce, such as potatoes and maple syrup, are shipped out for processing and then sold back to us.
“The basic driver is logistics,” he says. “Maine is a little bit off the beaten path so therefore it costs a little bit more for food to get up there, be it by train or truck, in whatever manner, so in that sense prices are always somewhat higher.”
Still, nationally, prices are falling faster than they have in a long time, and not just for Thanksgiving food. According to Todd, newly compiled data show average food prices for October were 2.3 percent lower than they were at the same time last year — the biggest annual drop seen since the 1950’s.
Contributing to that is a stronger poultry industry, which has rebounded after avian flu wiped out some 50 million birds, including turkeys, last year. Egg prices are also down as much as 60 percent in some places.
The best news is for consumers who eat meat. Nationally, beef is 15 percent cheaper than it was last year, and pork prices are down 5 percent.
“But if you’re not buying those items you may see increases in other areas, such as cereals, or other items in the supermarket that go into your cart,” Todd says.
Cranberries, for example. Prices for cranberries have been at record lows in recent years, forcing growers such as Maine’s Cherryfield Foods out of business altogether, but now prices are rebounding.
Even if some Mainers can’t, or won’t, keep their Thanksgiving costs down to the $4.98 per person suggested by the Farm Bureau, experts say Thursday’s big meal is still likely to be one of the most economical you’ve ever made.
